Search suspended
for sailboat
that left Kauai
The Coast Guard suspended the search yesterday for a California couple whose sailboat's distress signal was activated Thursday morning in waters 950 miles northeast of Oahu.
Coast Guard personnel -- using three C-130 and three Navy P-3 aircraft, and a cutter -- spent the day battling 12-foot swells and 25-knot winds to search for the couple, Brian and Helen Moore of Cypress, Calif.
The search, which encompassed more than 4,000 square miles over three days, was called off at 4:37 p.m. and will resume only if any developments arise, said Coast Guard Lt. Mia Dutcher.
The Moores' 32-foot sailboat, Azure, was never found and is presumed to have sunk, she said.
Coast Guard officials have been searching the area since an emergency radio beacon from the couple's sailboat was activated at 5:30 a.m. Thursday. A Coast Guard C-130 responded to the signal and spotted two people on a raft Thursday, but rescue personnel were unable to pick them up because of high seas.
On Friday, Coast Guard officials said that there was no one hanging on to any of the four rescue rafts they found in the area.
Three of the rafts were identified as the ones dropped by the Coast Guard along with survival kits, while the fourth was believed to be from the Azure.
The couple was attempting to sail from Kauai to Long Beach, Calif., in the last leg of a trip that the Moores had started in May to a number of Pacific islands, said their daughter-in-law, Anne Moore. Before reaching Kauai, the Moores had visited the Marquesas, Tahiti and Bora Bora, she said.
Moore said the couple saved for 25 years to buy the sailboat they used on the trip and planned out their sailing route for three years.
"Brian is an avid sailor and Helen is his first mate," she said. "We know that Brian and Helen are very strong, persistent people. That's kind of the legacy that they've left us."
The couple set sail from Kauai's Nawiliwili Harbor Nov. 16. Before leaving Hawaii, the Moores were able to spend some time with family members who had flown to Kauai to visit.
Moore, who last spoke to her father- and mother-in-law last week by telephone said the family is "very grateful that we got to have that time."
